It’s a day like any other, and then—bam!—everything changes. Millions of people disappear in an instant and all that’s left are piles of clothes, iPods and wallets. Panic and terror break out. This is the scene that viewers are faced with in the new Left Behind movie, directed by Vic Armstrong, and it’s Nicolas Cage’s job to find out what’s happened. But the viewers already know the answer: it’s the Rapture, of course! The Biblical "prophecies" have come true.
Or have they?
The new Left Behind movie (2014) depicts the "Rapture," which is
often assumed to be clearly explained in the Bible, especially the book
of Revelation. It’s more complicated than that, says author Michelle
Fletcher. In a Biblical Archaeology Society online article, shows the evolution of the "rapture" idea: how late 19th century Christians strung together widely diverse Old and New Testament texts into a pattern of rapture-tribulation-Antichrist to make the biblical text answer questions that never would have occurred to late first-century believers. To follow the texts and see how they were put together to support this notion, click here to read the article in its entirety.
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| John Darby popularized the "Rapture" idea |
Fans of the (fictional) book series should of course go ahead and enjoy the movie. But keep in mind that it is a fictional interpretation of a modern religious point of view. It is by no means biblically grounded.
If you like the movie, though, I encourage you to wander through the Book of Revelation and encounter the intrigue you'll find there. As Fletcher tells us, you'll find "contradictory timeframes and undisclosed declarations, and every time the end is announced, it never actually arrives." The Book revolves around an endpoint rather than marching toward one. It is, in essence, a text that defies any framework placed onto it."
